AdGuard Bloghttps://adguard.com/en/blog/index.html
Thoughts, stories and ideas.60First public BETA of AdGuard 3.0 for iOS: you'll not recognize ithttps://adguard.com/en/blog/adguard-3-0-for-ios-beta.html
Fri, 17 May 2019 21:20:49 +03005cdafb09d18d025a95f7ef55AdGuard for iOSRelease NotesBeta TestingAdGuard 3.0 for iOS first beta: filtering in Safari is now 5 times more potent. Also inside: DNS Privacy module, custom filters and much more.

It's very exciting to be writing about an AdGuard for iOS update. I'm sure, for many users it will be no less exciting to read about it. Even though this is only a beta update, it will give you an impression of what to expect when the release version hits the AppStore (which will happen sooner than you might think). There's a lot to discuss, so let's not waste any more time and kick things off right away.

NOTE: fixing the last bugs took us a bit longer than we expected, and by the time we post this article the new beta has been just submitted for the TestFlight review. It will take some more time for it to pass this review, and then the beta will be available to all beta testers. Towards the end of the article I'll explain how to become a beta tester for AdGuard for iOS.

Pro or no Pro?

Most of our users know that there are two AdGuard for iOS apps — free one and Pro, the paid one. Those who've been around for a while are, perhaps, also familiar with the not-so-pleasant situation around Apple policy and AdGuard Pro. It'll soon be a whole year after Apple put a ban on AdGuard Pro updates (and many other apps that did content blocking outside Safari). We've been looking for various solutions, waiting for Apple to reconsider their policy, but in the end there just wasn't any solution that would have been completely satisfactory for users. So this is what we decided to go by:

AdGuard Pro for iOS will stay as it is

Unless something truly magical happens, Apple is not going to loosen its grip on us. We still can't update AdGuard Pro without removing everything that makes it what it is. Thankfully, for the majority of users the app still functions alright, and we can only hope that it will stay that way for as long as possible.

Free AdGuard for iOS app will undergo a big update

This is what this article is about in the first place. The baseline of the free app is that it is still a great tool for content blocking in Safari — even better than before, in fact. The app will remain free.

There will be new features in the free app available via in-app purchases

Now, keep those pitchforks down for now, I'll explain everything in a moment. It's not as bad as it sounds, I promise :)

With all that said, let's move away from AdGuard Pro and start talking new beta. I'll skip discussing the new design on purpose, as you'll get a feel of it from the screenshots. And also, it's rather intuitive and there's no way it will cause you any troubles, so no need to devote too much time to it.

Powering through the rule count limitation

One of the biggest hurdles for any Safari content blocker is the notorious 50k active rule count limitation. For some reason, Apple thinks that 50,000 should be enough for you. For comparison, AdGuard Base filter alone has more than 100,000 rules! We're doing next to impossible things to optimize and compress our filters so that they can be used in Safari but the limitation still shows in the filtering quality.

Well, there is a trick that some content blockers have been using to circumvent this restriction, and AdGuard is going to arm itself with this trick too. The new beta combines five content blockers under one app, each of them has its own cap of 50k rules. That makes it 250k rules total (well, a little less in reality, but not by much). The only minor downside is that you need to enable all five content blockers in Safari settings on your phone/tablet, but that's not too big of an inconvenience comapred to the benefits.

Turn on all five content blockers and enable any filters you want!

Premium features

I know this may seem like having Premium features in an updated free version of AdGuard for iOS contradicts with saying that we can't update the Pro version. Unfortunately, not everything could be transferred from there.

DNS Privacy

This is by far the biggest addition. If you're a user of AdGuard Pro, you'll recognize this immediately — it's good old custom DNS settings. Actually, it's more than that: now AdGuard supports DNS-over-TLS and DNS-over-HTTPS, two of the most secured DNS protocols.

Manage your DNS settings

You select one of the DNS servers included by default or add any custom server you'd like. There's also a DNS requests log to monitor everything that's happening with your device's traffic. What you won't find there is any sort of DNS whitelist/blacklist or other customization. Sadly, this is as far as we can step under the circumstances.

Dark mode

Wait, wasn't dark mode the default (and only) choice before? Yes, but now we turned back to the classic white/green color scheme, as you could have seen on the screenshots above. Dark mode will be available to Premium users only, but isn't it worth it? :)

Bruce Wayne approves of this mode

Don't know about you, but I'm a big fan.

Premium filter categories

There are two filter categories that are available exclusively to Premium users:

Custom filters — not to be confused with the User filter that lets you add your own filtering rules and is present in the free version, as always. "Custom filters" is an entirely new filter group, you go there and add any number of filters by URL. Very useful if your favorite filter is not added by default, or if you have a filter of your own. Worth noting that filters added by URL will be automatically updated with the rest.

Premium filter categories: Custom and Security

Security filters — again, don't confuse it with the Privacy filter group. Protecting online privacy is essential and we wouldn't dare making it a Premium-only feature. Ensuring security is more about being attentive and careful when browsing the web, but if you look for a little extra insurance — this is for you.

How to get Premium?

There are three main options:

Purchase the subscription

This is the most simple way. Just tap on the "Get Premium" plaque anywhere in the app and you'll be prompted to activate a monthly subscription. All you need to do is enter your Apple ID password and confirm the purchase.

Log into your AdGuard Personal account

Go to the Settings > About > License screen and tap on the Login button there. You'll be asked to enter your AdGuard Personal account credentials. After you do, if you have a valid Premium or Mobile license in your account, it will be used to activate Premium in your AdGuard for iOS app. Friendly reminder that you can purchase any license on our official website.

Become a beta tester

Very fitting! All approved beta testers receive a 1-year beta license key that works just as a regular key for our purposes. Head over to this page and send a request if you'd like to become a beta tester. You'll receive a reply with further instructions if your request was approved.

If you are already an AdGuard for iOS beta tester, you need to contact us anyway to get a beta license key. Having a TestFlight invite is not enough with the new beta.

And this is all for today. Get ready for the update, or jump right into it by becoming a beta tester. In the meantime, we'll be hitting you with more updates to various AdGuard products. So stay tuned, you'll be hearing from us again very soon!

We don't post about new betas in Blog every day, and not because there aren't enough of them. Usually, most users won't be interested in beta updates, but this time is different. We receive questions about the new AdGuard for Windows version literally every day. That's understandable — the last update was back in October 2018. More than half a year ago!

This fact, combined with the high number of changes in the new beta, justifies writing an article about it. Let's have a look at the first AdGuard 7.0 beta!

What's new

Several big changes we need to talk about: new UI, CoreLibs update, automatic crash reports. Dozens more that didn't make it to the article but contribute to the update too. Let's get straight into the action by discussing the elephant in the room: the new UI design.

New looks

Oh yes. It's almost a tradition now — with every major update we redesign the UI of our app. We want to believe that this is not a change for the sake of change, and we actually make AdGuard look better with every redesign. If nothing else, we added a dark theme! See for yourself:

Turn to the dark side... or not. It's up to you, really

Of course, it is optional, just like with AdGuard for Android. The default theme is still the light one:

The classic color scheme is here to stay

Not only the visual style has changed, but also the layout of the main screen and the menus. Less complicated, less intimidating for new users, but more informative and functional at the same time. Or at least that's how we see it :)

The installation wizard follows the trend and gets a redesign too. It only makes sense, because it's the first thing new users see when they start their acquaintance with AdGuard, and it better be good!

Installation wizard introduces you to main AG features

Screenshots don't do it justice — the wizard has animations, you'll see it for yourself if you install AdGuard 7.0 from scratch.

Ok, you get it, AdGuard for Windows will look differently in v7.0. Hope you like it better this way :) Now let's talk about other things.

CoreLibs update

Everybody knows what CoreLibs is by this point, but we'll remind anyway: it is a filtering engine that drives the whole process of ad blocking in most AdGuard products, AdGuard for Windows included. And with every new version of CL these products become better: the quality of ad blocking increases, they work faster and become more stable. Too bad we can't show this on a screenshot — you'll have to actually go and update AdGuard.

This beta of AdGuard 7.0 for Windows features the most recent of CoreLibs version, which means this is as good as it gets. Well, at least until the next CoreLibs update :)

Automatic crash reports

Sometimes apps crash, no matter how well you test them before releasing, and this is even more true for betas. Reasons can be very different, and so are solutions. To be able to investigate every crash individually and find a proper fix, we added integration with an automatic crash report system. If AdGuard crashes, upon the next launch you'll be asked if you want to send a crash report.

The crash report is ready to be sent, it only requires your permission

Nothing will ever be sent without your consent, and if you want to know what exactly is in the report, you can check out our Privacy Policy. We'll appreciate each and every report, as it will help us greatly in making AdGuard for Windows more stable.

How to update

Not everyone is familiar with the beta update channel, so let me quickly explain where you can get the new toy. First of all — you can download the beta installer directly from our website. Scroll down and click the "Download Beta" button.

While there, you may also consider giving Nightly version a shot. Nightly to beta is roughly what beta is to release version — even more frequently updated, but less stable.

The other option is for users who already have AdGuard up and running. Go to General Settings and switch the update channel to "Beta", then check the app for updates. As simple as that.

Switch to Beta update channel to get the new version

You can download the beta installer from GitHub as well. It is also the place to go to find the complete changelog — obviously, there's much much more new stuff than what was mentioned in this article.

Whether you want to jump right in or wait for the official release, we hope that at the very least this article will sate your curiosity in regard to AdGuard for Windows. Stay tuned, as more updates are coming, and something very special will be announced at the end of the month!

]]>Legacy Safari Extensions are no longer supported: is it the end of powerful ad blockers?https://adguard.com/en/blog/legacy-safari-extensions.html
Wed, 24 Apr 2019 13:44:38 +03005cbebfcf811b547ff0879a12AdGuard for SafariAdGuard for Mac

We can't say we weren't expecting that. Last year Safari started the process of deprecating the traditional extensions, and we covered it in our Blog article. But you still could install the old style extensions and enable them manually.

Recently Apple presented Safari Technology Preview 80 (basically, it's a beta version for Safari), and it doesn't have any support for the traditional extensions at all.

What does it mean

Our last article partly explained it, but there's no harm in recapping. First of all, traditional, powerful Safari ad blockers like uBlock Origin and Adblock Plus will not work in the new version of Safari. Sure, the new so-called Safari App Extensions will stay around, but their functionality is seriously limited by Safari Content Blocking API (for example, the notorious 50k max rules count).

Most developers weren't able to redesign their extensions to fit the new requirements, or had to greatly simplify them along the way. As a result, the average quality of ad blockers that use the new API has dropped significantly.

Is this the end? Thankfully, no.

What to do?

AdGuard for Safari

As soon as the big news hit, we began to throw a lot of resources at developing an entirely new AdGuard extension that would be compatible with the new Safari versions. It's called AdGuard for Safari, and you can download it from the App Store for free.

We are not afraid to say that we did a good job, here's a comparison chart for some of the most popular ad blocking Safari App Extensions (as of September 2018, things may have changed in the meantime):

Despite the new restricting API, AdGuard for Safari works just as well as the traditional ad blocker extensions. It continues to grow, too. We have a lot of plans in regard to AdGuard for Safari, so stay tuned.

Go big with AdGuard for Mac

Here's another solution: step away from browser extensions entirely and turn your attention to the standalone ad blocking app — AdGuard for Mac. In contrast to the extension-based ad blockers, AdGuard desktop app doesn't rely on browsers' APIs and permissions. And if better ad blocking and privacy protection quality isn't enough of an incentive, it will eliminate ads in all browsers, not only in Safari — and even in other applications where you decide it is needed.

We talk a lot about the importance of privacy, and it is often tightly linked to data security. One of the cornerstones of data safety is two-factor authentication. Most of you are probably familiar with this concept, as it has become pretty much a security standard by now, but I'll throw in a refresher.

Two-factor authentication (or 2FA) is an authentication method that requires an additional piece of evidence from the user to log in, on top of the usual login/password pair. Usually for this purpose websites use a code sent by SMS or via a special app.

Our users have been scolding us for the lack of 2FA in AdGuard personal account for quite some time, and rightfully so. Finally, we are ready to deliver.

Now, we believe that 2FA is a strictly positive addition, but we also realize that some users would be irritated by being forced into it. So we made it optional, by default 2FA will be disabled when you register a new personal account on adguard.com. You can enable it manually in the Settings. As for the available options, at the start there will only be one: an authenticator app for Android or iOS — a tried and tested 2FA method (you can use basically any such app, there are plenty). We plan to add more options in the future, but for now it is the only one accessible.

We recommend setting up two-factor authentication for your AdGuard account. It will hardly cost you any time, but will go to great lengths to secure your license keys and, most importantly, any personal information associated with the account.

For many people around the world Easter is one of the most anticipated holidays of the year. Even though it is a bit early, we wish all of you a Happy Easter! And even those who don't celebrate it will hopefully find our 35% discount on all new license keys quite pleasant :)

You can say that with this huge update, AdGuard for Android is entering a new era. A jump like this can be only compared to the transition from the very first AdGuard for Android version to v2, and it's still more exciting this time.

Just look at how better it looks now!

There are significant changes to the UI, as you might expect from an update this big, but in fact the headliner of the new version is Stealth Mode, a new module dedicated solely to privacy protection. Let's kick things off by taking a closer look at the newcomer, and then continue checking out the rest of the changes (there are many more to talk about).

It is telling that we’re starting our feature overview with Stealth Mode, listing it even before the redesign, or anything else. With Stealth Mode, AdGuard takes another role in addition to ad blocker and app manager: the role of a privacy protection tool, and a strong one at that. AdGuard has had a special Tracking Protection filter for a long time, but the new module presents an entire range of tools. Some of them will suit almost everyone, and others are for more hardcore users.

AdGuard Stealth Mode

Let's quickly go over them, but instead of mentioning every single feature, we will group them into categories.

General

Here we placed the features that you can enable without any risk of facing much inconvenience. Options like hiding your search queries or removing tracking parameters from URLs are almost strictly advantageous, and you have no reason not to use them if you care about privacy.

Tracking methods

So many options they don't fit on screenshots

Includes options that prevent websites from tracking you by using various mechanisms, for example, cookies. It’s worth mentioning that enabling self-destruction of first-party cookies is not recommended unless you want to take privacy protection to the absolute limit, as it may cause some websites to work improperly, or not work at all.

Browser API

In this section, you can enable or disable browser API-related options. Read the description for each of them first to find a good balance between privacy and convenience (for example, blocking Push API will prevent servers from sending any notifications to your browser).

Miscellaneous

As the name suggests, this category contains a mish-mash of options. Hiding your User Agent or masking your IP address are the sort of features you will find there.

If you feel intimidated by the variety of available options, you will like the new first launch wizard that will help you choose the configuration most suited for you — more on that later.

New UI

As important as Stealth Mode is, the tone of the update is largely dominated by the visual changes, and this time there are plenty. Almost every aspect of the old design was reworked, revamped and (hopefully) improved. There’s too much to mention in one chunk of text, so let's divide them into more digestible paragraphs.

Everything is new here. New overall style, new icons, new layout. Our designers spent countless hours on it, going through many iterations. The end goal was to make users feel confident in their ability to navigate the app quickly and easily, and we believe we managed to achieve that.

New AdGuard for Android design

We did a lot of tidying up, removed all the elements that clogged up the screen, and added intuitive icons. If you want to get somewhere, it will be very clear to you how to do so.

This is probably one of the most desirable features ever. We’ve received requests from users to add a dark theme basically since the app was introduced for the first time more than three years ago. Finally, it has arrived.

Dark theme looks awesome! (source: us)

It is also true that for every voice that demands a dark theme, there is an equally loud one that goes against it. We would never betray our more conservative users, so the classic light theme is still available (and it's still the default one, for what it's worth).

Statistics are useful; it’s always nice to know how many ads were blocked, how much traffic was saved, and so on. But simply looking at bland numbers is not very informative, and also plain boring. Charts provide more information and are much more comprehensive.

Curves are much better than numbers (that's a fact)

While on the main screen, select the preferred time period and tap on the stat you're interested to display the chart (or go inside Apps Management to look at app-specific charts).

The wizard's goal is to make you familiar with AdGuard if its your very first time interacting with it. Upon the first launch, it will walk you through the available features and make some suggestions. Feel free to enable or skip any of them, depending on your preferences.

The apps icon has changed, so the widget needed to be altered as well. Not much to say here: aside from the change in looks, widgets now provide some statistics about blocked requests and so on.

New AdGuard widgets

CoreLibs update

In case you need a refresher, CoreLibs is the new filtering engine that AdGuard is built upon. What AdGuard can and can't do is defined by it, so no wonder it's so important. One of the biggest advantages of CoreLibs compared to the previous engine is that it's cross-platform. This means AdGuard for Android can now take the best from the other AdGuard apps, and you can already see it in action with Stealth Mode.

In this update, CoreLibs receives a further boost, granting better performance and filtering quality. About 150 improvements were made to the filtering engine. We cannot list them all here, but here is a link if you want to check them out.

Other changes

Here are some of the more niche features that will primarily appeal to more tech-savvy users.

…and if it's still not there, no big deal! Just add it manually, because now it's extremely easy. Just tap the respective button, enter the URL, and your filter will appear among the rest. The new filter will be updated automatically, and of course you can add more than one at a time.

Ok, just one more, I swear...

Conclusion

And that wraps it up for AdGuard 3.0 for Android! Traditionally, the full changelog is available on GitHub. Make sure you install the new version by checking for updates (an icon on the main screen of the app), and if you are new to AdGuard, check out the free trial by downloading the app from our official website.

Let us know about your first impressions of the new AdGuard by leaving a comment below, and see you soon with more news!

PS: Unfortunately, all these wonderful changes would have not been possible without using some of the features available only on newer Android OS versions. Similar to Windows XP, the days of Android 4.x are coming to an end. And despite this wasn't an easy decision, starting with this version AdGuard will only work on devices with Android OS 5+. Owners of devices with Android 4.x can find previous versions of AdGuard on GitHub.

We are currently answering questions about the update on Product Hunt, so if you have any — we are waiting for you there. Oh, and by the way, there is an exclusive 40% discount for "hunters" there, don't tell anyone :)

Everybody who has any interest in Android OS is currently talking about Android Q beta that has been released just recently. The developers' blog post provides a lot of food for thought, but it doesn't answer the most important question: how does Android Q affect AdGuard? :) Read on to find out.

First of all, we feel obliged to say that a lot of things which we consider important were done right in this beta. We are particularly happy with all the privacy-related improvements that are coming to Android (for example, giving users more control over apps). However, some of the changes affect AdGuard in a negative way, and you should be aware of them before the update rolls out.

The main issue is that now it is harder to detect what app is connecting to AdGuard. Why is this so important? AdGuard is not just a simple DNS-level ad blocker. It is a fully-featured firewall, so it's crucial to be able to distinguish traffic between the apps. The same applies to HTTPS filtering — it won't be possible for the same reasons.

Good news is that in the latest AdGuard v3.0 beta this issue is partially fixed, depending on your preferred filtering mode:

in local VPN mode, everything will work as it should

in rooted local proxy mode, the firewall functionality and HTTPS filtering are still crippled, but they are going to be fixed by the time Android Q gets officially released

in no-root proxy mode, the same issues exist, and we will not be able to fix them unless something changes in the future versions of Android Q. We recommend to avoid this filtering mode.

A lot has changed since the first ad blocking browser extensions appeared on the market. Simply blocking ads is not enough anymore (not to say it is an easy task — advertisers are constantly learning new tricks to jam their ads past the filters). Today, big data rules the world. Tracking is omnipresent, the price of information has skyrocketed, and so has the value of privacy. People seek tools to protect it, and ad blockers need to adapt to the new demands in order to stay competitive. We understand this more than anyone, and the new AdGuard browser extension v3.0 reflects this.

Thanks to the newly added Stealth Mode, a privacy-oriented multitool, AdGuard further stands out from the ranks of regular ad blocking extensions.

What's new?

Stealth Mode, without any doubt, is the headliner of the new version, but let's be patient and go over every noteworthy change one at a time.

New design

It’s true that any change starts from the inside, but in the end you’ll be judged by your looks more often than not. The AdGuard extension now has a new design, and it’s not just a dumb reskin. There’s a lot more to it: fresh icons and a new overall theme make the interface more natural and user friendly.

AdGuard Extension v3.0 main menu

In the main extension menu, you’ll also find a brand new "Statistics" tab. It features detailed numerical stats and charts, with the ability to show different types of data: filter-specific data, data for various time frames, or in total.

New Statistics tab

Also worth mentioning is the User filter. It has undergone a few changes too. The new luminous element highlighting and auto-save function, as well as a unified text field for filtering rules should make editing more convenient. The text box can also be resized to your liking.

The new look of the User filter

We hope you’ll like the new design and find it convenient and pleasing to the eye. We certainly do!

Now, on to the main course of the update. We’ve said it a thousand times already and will say it again: privacy is not a luxury, it is an inalienable right of each person. Unfortunately, we have to fight for this right, and the AdGuard team is proud to be at the forefront of this battle.

Stealth Mode is a powerful instrument that protects your online privacy in many ways. In fact, Stealth Mode is more than that: it’s a whole module that includes a wide range of tools. Previously, only AdGuard for Windows users had access to Stealth Mode; and although the browser extension version doesn't have the full capabilities of its bigger brother just yet, it still does a very good job.

Stealth Mode — a great way to protect your online privacy

Those users who are new to the world of privacy protection might have some troubles understanding what this or that option does. And although all settings have tooltips, let's run through them real quick.

Cookies
Cookies are one of the most common ways, for websites to get information about you just by using the built-in capabilities of your browser. By disabling them (or restricting their lifespan), you will make their job a lot harder. Be careful though: restricting third-party cookies will at most cause you minor inconvenience (e.g., you will have to manually enter your logins/passwords), but restricting first-party cookies can break some websites.

Hide Referrer
Whenever you visit a website, it usually knows where you came there from, and will act accordingly. For example, let’s say you want to purchase a plane ticket after browsing travel packages — tickets for you might be overpriced. By hiding your referrer you deprive websites of this luxury.

Hide search queries
Rather self-explanatory: whenever you click on a link from search results, it won't know what queries you made.

Send Do-Not-Track header
Surprisingly, some websites are more polite than others, and actually will not track you if you ask them nicely by sending this special header with your web requests.

Delete X-Client-Data header
Unique to the Chrome browser, this setting will prevent it from sending information about itself to Google domains.

Remove tracking parameters
You must have noticed this before: often the link you follow contains garbage like utm_source, utm_content, etc. All these parameters are not essential in the slightest for the link to work, but serve for tracking purposes. Bonus: You can modify the list of these parameters yourself!

Future AdGuard extension updates will bring more Stealth Mode options, making it better and better at protecting your privacy.

Other major changes

Going back a little, let's talk more about the new design. We changed the way in which the filters are presented to users. Instead of listing them all together, we combined the filters into semantic groups. Each group includes filters that serve some particular goal. For example, filters that block ads are grouped together, filters that block trackers and serve privacy purposes will be united into a different group, etc.

Filter groups

Filters in a group can be enabled and disabled individually, or all at once. Note that once the group is switched off, related filters will not work, even if they are enabled (they will not receive updates either). The new system should make filter management more intuitive and help new users.

Speaking of filters, previously, filters were automatically updated every 48 hours (default period), end of story. Now you can adjust the frequency of automatic updates (by choosing from options: every 1/6/12/24/48 hours) or disable them completely, in case you prefer manual updates.

For those who don't know, if you already have the AdGuard desktop app (either for Windows or Mac), our browser extension may become a useful addition to it. The extension can completely replace the browser-based “AdGuard Assistant” module (learn more). It is called Integration Mode, and now you can turn it on or off at will from the “Other settings” tab.

In conclusion

This doesn't, of course, cover the entire changelog. To see the rest of the changes (totaling almost a hundred), go to the GitHub repository.

Also, we would like to remind you that there is a beta channel for the AdGuard extension. If you’re interested in receiving the latest updates as soon as physically possible (and don't fear a stray bug or two), welcome into the fold.

And that’s all for today! Make sure your AdGuard is up to date, and see you soon!

At the moment of publishing of this post, the extension is in the process of updating. If you are using Firefox, the new version might not be available yet. To avoid waiting, you can install the beta version of the extension, it is quite stable.

For so many of us Valentine's Day is one of the most special and exciting days of the year. It is not only a reason to spend time together with your loved one, but also a great occasion to make presents, sweet surprises and say important, sometimes even life-changing words. We put so much of ourtime, effort and emotions into preparations for this day, it can be absolutely heartbreaking if something ruins it.

Now imagine that this "something" is not some unstoppable force or an unlikely turn of events, but a regular, stupid, boring online ad. The following stories are about people just like you and me, who had what could become one of the most memorable and happy days of their lives completely spoiled by targeted advertising.

The first story: no surprises, Christmas miracle gone wrong

Oh my God, is it Xbox?

This story is about Nora Crotty, a woman who struggled to find a Christmas gift for her parents. We all know this disgusting feeling when you can't come up with a good present and have to resort to something generic as a last second substitute. On the contrary, there are very few things that can compare to making a perfectly fitting gift for someone you love. Luckily for Nora, she got an awesome idea. Knowing her parents were extremely proud of their respective alma maters, she googled and then purchased for each of them a vintage-inspired college sweater.

Imagine her disappointment when her mom used Nora's laptop to log into her Facebook and then "proceeded to tell me about ‘these neat UVM sweaters’ she kept seeing on the sides of her feed, and 'wouldn’t that be a great idea for dad?!'" The targeted ad ruined what could have become a cherished memory for the entire family.

There is no shortage on similar stories on the Internet. Sure, you can delve into Google account settings, delete search history, etcetera, etcetera, but should it really be the thing that occupies your attention when you are pumped up about making a surprise for a beloved person?

The second story: Marriage proposal over ads

If you are married, you are a lucky one: you had a chance to either propose or be proposed to. If you are not married, you are even more lucky, you just don't know it yet — because you have this magical moment ahead of you. It is hard to describe, but it is one of those rare experiences that you can only share with someone once in a lifetime, and it sticks with you forever. Well, at least it was like that for me.

Jo Piazza was at this stage in her relationship when she kind of suspected her boyfriend was going to propose, but she didn't know when and how. And she very well enjoyed that state of things, living in the mix of anticipation and pleasant ignorance. Then, as it often goes in this type of stories, her laptop started to act up, so without any second thought she grabbed the boyfriend's one to look up whatever. In her own words, "This was the most aggressive retargeting campaign I’ve ever seen. Ads just kept coming, each one more aggressive than the next, popping up on both Google and Facebook." You can guess what type of ads they were: engagement ring ads. Naturally, Jo tried to ignore this new knowledge, but ultimately it slipped through in a conversation.

Of course, the boyfriend proposed anyway, and the ring was beautiful, but it wasn't the same.

The third story: hey Google, am I pregnant?

Here I actually have two quite different stories for you. The first one is not related directly to online ads, but is very representative in terms of targeting. The huge US retailer with a very fitting name — Target — assignes every customer a Guest ID number, tied to their credit card, name, or email address. Then Target looks at the history of purchases, searching for patterns that would indicate that the customer is expecting a baby. Such customers very soon start receiving coupons for all kinds of baby items. This sometimes leads to ridiculous situations:

An angered man appeared at a Target store, asking for a manager. He was infuriated that his high school daughter got a bunch of coupons for baby clothes and cribs. The manager apologized, and even called a few days later to apologize again, only to find out that Target, in fact, got the news ahead of the soon-to-be grandfather. This could even be seen as a funny story if it wasn't that creepy, considering the very intimate nature of the matter in question.

But what does it take to escape the all-seeing eye of the big companies and hide your pregnancy? When Princeton sociology professor Janet Vertesi became pregnant, as an experiment she took all possible and impossible measures. This included using Tor browser, paying for all maternity clothes and other products in cash, and vetoing friends and family members from discussing the pregnancy on Facebook. In the end, she succeded: she didn't see a single parenting-related ad through the course of her pregnancy. Was it worth it? "Opting out makes you look like a criminal," says Vertesi. She doesn't recommend others to do what she did, describing it as both "incredibly inconvenient and difficult to do".

Conclusion

Does it mean that we lose and the big data companies win? Not necessarily. You can live normal life and still protect your privacy by using an ad blocker or any other way to block online trackers. Today and tomorrow you can purchase an AdGuard license for you and your significant other with a 40% discount. A great way to make sure all your future gifts will always bring joy and happiness!

By the way, do you have similar stories of your own? Did you have the misfortune of ads ruining your day one way or another? Share your pain with us by sending an email to pr@adguard.com with the subject "Ads vs Me", and we will include your story in the compilation of the most unfortunate/bizarre/scary cases when things go wrong because of ads and tracking.

In late December we posted a recap of 2018 from AdGuard's point of view. But the year didn't happen in a vacuum; we are all in this together — ad blocker developers, ad blocker users, and advertisers. So anything that happens in the "world of ad blocking" concerns both us and you, the users. Let's look back at the most noteworthy events in the industry, assess their impact, and try to make some predictions for the next year.

By the way, in the previous year we wrote a similar post about 2017 and also made some predictions for 2018. Without false modesty, we can say that all of them came true! Let's use those predictions as a springboard to jump into the last year's recap.

The value of personal data

Our prediction:

The value of personal data is growing, along with the understanding of this value by users. As data gets processed in more and more sophisticated ways, the risks of abuse get higher and at the same time more comprehensible.

Did it come true?

Absolutely.

We hit the bullseye with this one. In the modern world, information costs money, and companies pay insane amounts for the personal data of their potential users. People quickly realized the value of their personal information, and more and more of them take active measures to protect their privacy today. One example: last year, after a series of privacy-related scandals, almost 75% of all Facebook users took actions to restrict FB's access to their personal data; 1 in 4 actually deleted the FB app from their phones.

Our prediction:

The start of GDPR implementation in May 2018 will also trigger a surge in interest in personal data protection.

Did it come true?

Obviously, yes.

The GDPR coming into full force this year was a great factor in increasing the appreciation of privacy. Companies now can't afford to hide data leaks — you could easily notice it just by the increase in popularity of this topic in the news. Facebook, of course, was the absolute champion in that regard this year ([1], [2], [3]).

One of the less obvious positive impacts of GDPR is that it kind of opened the floodgates. Now there are talks about more similar regulations; for example, California (US) already passed a law that will grant its residents more control over their personal information online.

New startups or large players?

Our prediction:

Interesting new startups in the niche of protection from aggressive marketing (ad blocking, anti-tracking) will appear, but the market trends (and the activity of popular browser developers) are more favorable for the evolution of large players than for the emergence of new ones.

Did it come true?

Yes.

Perhaps this prediction wasn't the hardest to make, but still. Large corporations are still setting the rules of the game.

Google went as far as blocking ads itself and even founding the Coalition for Better Ads. Now, Google will decide which ads are suitable for you, and it is, of course, a total and complete mystery what ads will be chosen (except it is not).

Mozilla first implemented tracking protection in its Firefox browser, and then evolved it to content blocking.

Apple continues to develop Intelligent Tracking Protection in Safari.

All in all, there is a clearly visible trend: it is absolutely impossible to fight the surge of ad blockers on desktops. This is what people want and this is what they will use, one way or another. If you can't beat them, lead them — Google knows this best of all, it seems.

It is a different story for mobile devices, and we will talk about that later.

Smartphones

Our prediction:

Ad blocking on smartphones is unlikely to grow at a significant pace in Europe and the US: smartphones are too dependent on their ecosystem’s developers (Google, Apple), and these developers do not like anti-marketing products. They let browsers with ad-restriction features exist on their platforms, but this is a niche product for geeks.

Did it come true?

It is happening right now.

Ad blockers are not allowed in the big app stores: Amazon, Apple and Google all made it impossible for real ad blockers (not parodies that these stores are teeming with) to be distributed via their platforms. We experienced it first-hand, and while Google has long been known for this stance, Amazon and Apple joined the mob only this year.

You might say, wait a sec! Didn't Apple add an entire content blocking technology to Safari? They did, but it is laughable. Safari Content Blocking API was basically abandoned after its launch, it is in utter stagnation. And we know like no one else that you can't fight ads, especially ad recover/reinjection startups, without continuous innovation.

Moreover, the main offenders to privacy on mobile phones have always been apps, not browsers. There is no shortage of evidence for this claim, just look at our Facebook research. And any attempts to confront apps when they try to collect users' data come up against fervent resistance from none other than those same big corporations.

Anti-adblocking and ad reinsertion

Our prediction:

The anti-adblocking and ad reinsertion markets will continue to grow. A third of the sites from Alexa’s top 10,000 are already working with ad blocking users in some way.

Did it come true?

No doubt.

As ad blockers grow, these technologies continue to grow too. It should be mentioned that more and more websites are moving away from the adblock wall strategy (because it simply doesn't work, as multiple examples demonstrate), and towards ad reinsertion (technology that helps circumvent ad blockers).

The arms race is in full swing. Ad blockers are honing their anti-ad tools, and companies that specialize in ad recovery are studying bypass mechanisms. And there is no end in sight.

Connected home, AR, voice recognition and privacy

Our prediction:

Advertising technologies related to augmented reality, voice recognition <...> will evolve. Active penetration of connected devices in homes will continue, and new privacy, data loss and abuse scandals will arise. Attempts to regulate IoT legislation will be made, probably in the EU, maybe in the US. <...> Brands continue to master the marketing potential of voice AI assistants.

Did it come true?

It did, and it was hard to miss.

As the old joke goes, "the letter "P" in "IoT" stands for "privacy." Everything that touches IoT is a complete mess, a war zone. There are virtually no rules, companies accumulate ridiculous amounts of very sensitive data from voice assistants and smart furniture, and they are not particularly careful with it. Data losses happen left and right, here is a good example: Amazon sends 1.700 Alexa voice recordings to the wrong user. If you think this is somehow an exception to the rule, you are very wrong. Here is Alexa being hacked, again. And here Google Home joins the party.

The first attempts to regulate the data security of the Internet of Things have been made, too. The most notable is the Californian IoT legislation aimed at protecting Californian users' privacy.

Cryptojacking

Our prediction:

Threats related to crypto-currencies will not lose relevance. Scripts for stealth mining (cryptojacking) will continue to be found in the most unexpected places.

Did it come true?

Mostly yes.

Everything crypto-related may seem to be on the slow side now, but a recent study showed a 400% increase in instances of cryptojacking since last year. Throughout the year we had several occasions to talk about cryptojacking. In this article, we conducted a research and found out that some of the most popular video hosting sites were involved in a cryptojacking scheme.

Ad blockers start to work together

Our prediction:

Ok, we didn't make such prediction. But we meant it!

November 2018 marked (hopefully) a new milestone in the ad blocking industry. The first Ad-Blocking Developer Summit gathered developers from all over the world to discuss the current state and the future of the ad blocking industry. We are proud to have been part of it, and hope that such conferences will become regular. If advertisers and big companies can work together, why can't we too?

It is easy to underestimate the importance of this event, especially since it wasn't talked about much outside of the developer circle, but that would be a mistake. We will try to post a separate article about the results of this conference, and how we view them, later.

Our predictions for 2019

Let's see if we can nail the predictions just as well this time around. Here are some of the ad blocking trends we expect to see this year.

The growth of traditional ad blockers will slow down or stop completely

It seems that almost everyone who wanted to block ads has already learned how to do it and installed an ad blocker. In addition to that, many browsers are now trying to block ads on their own in one way or another. Yes, they do a noticeably worse job than traditional ad blockers, but this is enough to slow down the growth, which is already not as huge as it used to be several years ago.

Google search trends for the "adblock" keyword over the last 2 years

Also, innovations in ad blocking are becoming increasingly difficult, considering that browsers constantly put spokes in ad blockers' wheels ([1], [2]). Mobile ad blockers could have been a saving grace for the growth of the industry, and the growth is indeed there, but it is just too slow. No breakthroughs are expected in 2019 either.

The big companies that set the rules of the game just don't want ad blockers, plain and simple. We will hear more about Google Fuchsia (a new OS developed by Google), and we will not like this news.

The situation we describe might seem quite grim, but it will not last forever. There will be a new wave of ad blockers sooner or later, independent from artificial ecosystems set up by big companies. We expect a shift in new ad blockers' priorities, with more emphasis on privacy protection.

Yet another boom in interest towards privacy is coming in 2019

The GDPR shook everyone big time, but this is all just the beginning. Many companies have not taken this law seriously enough, but when the first large fines are exacted in 2019, they will have to review their priorities.

Another major event to look forward to is the new California Privacy Law coming into full force in January 2020. Some US companies simply restricted access for European users and did not do anything about the GDPR. It is very possible they will have to rethink their approach very soon.

More paywalls, more subscriptions

This trend appeared earlier, but it will continue through 2019. The Guardian, New Yorker, ArsTechnica, and many, many others, are trying to diversify their business and stop being dependent on advertising profits.

By the way, we do not think this is all about ad blockers. As we said before, their share is growing very slowly and some kind of "adblockalypse" (which some had expected) never happened. The real reason is, companies like BuzzFeed and Vox Media were built on the expectation of fast growth in advertising sales. Instead, they have found that Facebook and Google – “the duopoly” – have simply tightened their grip on digital advertising revenue.

It is rather ironic that all along, the reason for the various media's revenue problems was not ad blockers (as everybody feared), but the advertising giants Google and Facebook.

Innovations in ad blocking will come, but you will not see them

Even though we said that innovations in ad blocking are being impeded, that doesn't mean there won't be any. For example, there is a lot of talk about the use of AI technology in ad blockers, like automatic recognition of advertising on webpages ([1], [2], [3]).

Such technologies are really evolving, but we doubt that there will be any breakthroughs in 2019. The rate at which these technologies find their groove will grow gradually, and at first they will find applications mostly on the back end. Think automatic filter analysis, site monitoring, and so on. So far these technologies are not ready to be implemented in ad blockers.

Last time I checked, the year was 2019, and it is hard to overestimate how important information is today. It is being collected, stored, purchased, sold and stolen. And the most valuable information is information about you: the person. Companies go out of their way in attempts to build extensive profiles about online users, and other companies pay them a pretty penny for these profiles.

Today is the international Data Privacy Day, and it presents a great opportunity to talk about ways to protect yourself online. People usually don't like being a product, and probably neither do you. After all, you wouldn't let random weirdos stalk you while you eat, go shopping or watch TV. How are your online actions any different? Sadly, most people just don't know what to do about it.

In this article we will look at 7 ways to shield yourself from omnipresent surveillance, and in the end I promise a small but pleasant surprise.

1. Read privacy policies

Or at least check if there is any when you install a new mobile app or browser extension. This sounds silly, but it is true! Sometimes apps and extensions have no privacy policy, or even worse, it just tells you in plain text that they are going to grab all your personal data and then sell it.

Just look at the OperaVPN privacy policy

Now, I don't say you have to read the wall of text that every privacy policy ever usually is. But even glancing over it for a minute or two to spot any obvious discrepancies will go a long way.

2. Pay attention to permissions you give your apps

Want to install this cool new game on your smartphone? Remind me, why does it need access to camera and microphone? Exactly. It doesn't. Treat every new app on your devices as a potential enemy to your privacy. Think twice about sharing information about yourself, even with applications and services by legitimate and respected companies — there are enough examples of massivedatabreaches.

3. Turn off location services on your phone

Geolocation is one of the most delicious types of data that analytics companies can put their hands on. By having access to someone's location history one can potentially find out almost everything about this person's tastes, hobbies, social and financial status etc. Restrict location services for apps that clearly don't need it, and consider disabling it completely if you don't need them at the moment.

On iOS, go to Settings - Privacy - Location Services to configure permissions for each app or disable it completely.

On Android, it is much more complicated. As it turned out, simply disabling Location History in phone settings will not be sufficient to stop some apps from tracking. You need to go to your Google Account and find Web & App Activity setting. Finding it is not easy, so use one of the guides available online.

4. Clear cookies

Whenever someone writes about cookies, they usually start with a brief explanation of what they are. Cookies are small files sent by websites and stored on your PC or mobile device. They usually contain some information about your activity on this website, like shopping cart contents in an online store. But cookies are also one of the primary mechanisms for websites to track you. Consider clearing them once in a while, and when on mobile make it a rule to restart your browser from time to time.

"You want to delete what?!"

Clearing cookies often comes with a cost, as your experience with some websites may not be as smooth. For example, you'd need to log in manually more often. So find your own balance between privacy and convenience, but whatever you do don't say we didn't warn you!

Oh, and if you think that using incognito mode somehow helps keep your privacy — it doesn't.

5. Install an ad blocker

Hey, we are an ad blocking company, so install an ad blocker, alright? wink wink But in all seriousness, by far the most efficient way to fight online tracking is to use a dedicated software. Be it a tracker blocker, or an ad blocker with anti-tracking filter lists, they all do the same: monitor your traffic and block any attempts to send information to tracking domains.

If you decide to choose AdGuard, know that all of our products offer special Spyware filter that blocks all known trackers and analytics. You will probably want to enable it in settings. AdGuard for Windows app also provides access to Stealth Mode — a whole module devoted to privacy protection, and soon it will be implemented to other AdGuard products, too.

6. Use encrypted DNS

Whoa, whoa! This one is not like the others! Indeed, many people have a very vague idea about DNS or haven't heard about it at all. We explain DNS in our Knowledge Base, but to save time let's just say that while unencrypted, DNS traffic can be exploited by your ISP or potential attackers to steal your personal data and even uniquely identify you. The worst part is that using regular ad blockers and taking other measures described above will do nothing about it.

DNS privacy concerns

In order to protect yourself on the DNS front, you have to use one of the encrypted DNS protocols and switch to trustworthy DNS servers over the default ones. One of the simplest ways to achieve this is to choose AdGuard DNS. It is easy to set up, can be used on literally any device and will even block ads and trackers along the way. For the advanced users we can suggest AdGuard Home, which offers a lot of other options on top of AdGuard DNS, is highly customizable, but requires some skills to get going.

7. Use VPN or proxy

I put this in the end intentionally, not because using it is ineffective, but because it requires more setup, and to be honest, best VPN services are not free. VPNs and proxies are essentially servers that stand between you and the website you are trying to reach, and to that website it appears like the request is made by the server, and not by you.

So why not just use VPN all the time? Some do, but you need to understand the tradeoffs before you dive in. Depending on what service you choose and on your location, you may experience a drop in connection speed. Also let's not forget that once you commit to using a VPN, you trust its owner with all your data, so choose carefully.

There are countless examples of "fake" VPN providers (mostly among the free ones) that hardly provide you with anonymity but instead collect your personal data themselves. Without doing any advertising, I would recommend selecting one of the well-known and trustworthy VPN services, even if it will cost you several bucks a month. After all, you didn't come here to save on privacy.

Conclusion & promised surprise

Protecting your online privacy is not an easy task. Following these pieces of advice will be a major step towards safety, but all this won't work if you don't make privacy a priority. Think twice next time you are about to tag your location on a photo or blindly a new mobile app access to everything on your phone. Remember that you're the one who is responsible for your privacy.

You might have already heard about this. Google is going to change Chrome's extension platform. The proposed change in its current state will cripple or even effectively kill a lot of extensions, and it will significantly reduce the capabilities of ad blockers including AdGuard Chrome extension.

We are receiving numerous questions about this situation, and in this post, I'd like to clarify our position.

In my opinion, Google does NOT intend to kill ad blockers. They genuinely want to make the extensions platform more secure and improve the situation with users privacy. It is not a secret that Chrome Web Store is full of spyware and even malware. So they had two options: invest more time into the manual review process or limit extensions capabilities. It's obvious now what they chose.

It does not mean that ad blocking extensions for Chrome will cease to exist. It just means that they will become worse. How much worse depends on the outcome of this discussion (please don't comment there if you are not a developer). The new proposed API is not final, and there is a chance that in the end, the solution will not be too bad.

So what do we think about it? I'll be blunt, we at AdGuard are sick and tired of what's going on with large ecosystems during the last couple of years. Google (1, 2), Apple (1, 2), and even Amazon (1) (who would have thought!) slowly deprive users of control over their data. Surprisingly enough, usually, it is being done in the name of security and privacy.

This is the reason why we spend so much time developing products that do not depend on those, who control ecosystems. AdGuard Home might be in its early stages, but every recent news reinforces my belief that this is the future of content blocking.

Needless to say that premium AdGuard products for Windows, Mac, and Android work on the network-level and are not affected by this change.

Only few days left before the next year dawns on us, and traditionally this is the best time to draw a line, look back and recall what was done in the last 12 months (and what was not). Of course, we won't go over every single update for every AdGuard product, but instead let's have a look at the most important milestones, without concern for chronological order.

Honestly, we completed way less projects than we aimed for, but made up for it by laying the foundation for many exciting stuff that will go in full swing in the next year. So keep an eye on our announcements — there are quite a few big hitters coming soon! Ok, without further ado:

CoreLibs

Arguably, this can be called THE change of 2018. For the uninitiated: CoreLibs is a new cross-platform filtering engine that will power AdGuard products across all platforms for the foreseeable future. In detail it was described in the respective Blog article, feel free to go there and freshen your memory. The takeaway is, with it filtering has become faster and better.

CoreLibs filtering Engine explained

Some of AdGuard products already reap the benefits of CoreLibs, other will follow soon. For example, after the introduction of CL AdGuard for Android v2.12 became three times faster! AdGuard for Mac users can enjoy CoreLibs only in Nightly update channel yet (more about Nightly just in a minute), and AdGuard for Windows users are the least lucky in that regard. We didn't manage to release AG for Windows v7.0 this year even as a beta, but the wait will be well worth it when it finally hits the release in 2019!

With CoreLibs, AG for Android works 3 times more effectively

What else to say about CoreLibs? It plays a perfect role in our new course on privacy protection. With its help we will be able to implement a Stealth Mode to all AdGuard products. Stealth Mode is already familiar to AdGuard for Windows users, it is a special module dedicated solely for privacy protection. A more than welcome addition, considering all the privacy breaches trends of 2018.

From the ad blocking perspective, CoreLibs is also very useful. Some ad providers put a lot of effort to circumvent the ad blockers, and have a reasonable success at it. CL will ensure AdGuard has an upper hand in this eternal fight once again.

Nightly builds

What are Nightly builds? They are the most recent, often even raw versions of AdGuard. Nightly to beta channel is what beta is to release channel. An extremely useful thing, a sort of a symbiosis between testers and developers. Testers get an exclusive access to new features before anyone else even hears about it, and developers get sweet sweet feedback. Everyone is happy, and even regular AdGuard users benefit from it: in the end, they get a more stable product with less bugs.

Want this neat little label too? Switch to Nightly!

If you think this is your thing and you want to join the ranks of Nightly testers, head here.

AdGuard for iOS

The app was redesigned, not without some controversy, of course, but most users found this change pleasant. What everyone agreed on is that the app received a huge boost to ad blocking and privacy protection potential. New "Privacy settings" module and DNSCrypt support made this a reality. These and other, less flashy changes, made AdGuard Pro for iOS one of the most desirable apps for iOS users. We had some far-reaching plans, too.

You better be a fan of dark themes in apps!

Everything changed when the fire nation attacked. Apple announced changes to its policy regarding AppStore applications, which effectively banned any ad blockers that work outside of Safari. Free AdGuard for iOS app was not affected by it, but that couldn't be said about AdGuard Pro. It remained in the AppStore, but it was made clear to us that no updates were possible unless we remove the very functionality that makes AdGuard Pro what it is. Not a pleasant spot to be in, and we decided to discontinue the development of the Pro app for the indefinite period of time.

Apple bans ad blockers, 2018, colorized

As of now, the app still works, although it could have been so much better by now if not for the Apple's ridiculous stance on ad blockers. Meanwhile, most of our freed up efforts were aimed at the development of Safari Content Blocker, but we also have some thoughts about possible ways to further evolve AdGuard Pro. Stay tuned, we still have some fight left in us.

Goodbye, Amazon

This one's short and simple: Amazon went the same way Google and Apple did and basically banned system-wide ad blockers. We didn't have much choice but to leave the platform. Thankfully, Android users have more freedom when it comes to sideloading, so feel free to download the standalone version of AdGuard for Android.

AdGuard Home and DNS

Once the "holy trinity" of Google, Apple and Amazon decided that they know better what users can and what they can't do, it was only logical to provide some tools that would allow users to stay independent in their ad blocking preferences. And towards the end of the year we threw a one-two punch of AdGuard Home and AdGuard DNS releases. A quick reminder what are those beasts and what to do with them:

Roughly, this is how AdGuard DNS works

AdGuard DNS has been around since forever, it is a very easy, if not a little crude, way to block ads on virtually anything. PC, cell phone, smart TV, you name it. However, we hesitated to officially announce it, as so much needed to be polished. Finally, the time had come, and today AdGuard DNS is not only a solid way to block ads, but also a cutting-edge privacy protection tool.

AdGuard Home web dashboard

AdGuard Home, on the other hand, is where you want to be if you need total control over all devices in your home, work or any other network. Granted, it is currently not an easy task to get it going for an average user. But the efforts spent are worth it: AdGuard Home combines the simplicity and effectiveness of the DNS approach with multiple customization options. You can manage the entire network's traffic from an intuitive web dashboard, accessible at any time from any device, including your smartphone. Funny detail: we wanted to add even more stuff before the release, but simply couldn't wait any longer, so we labeled it v0.9 as opposed to the full-fledged v1.0 that will come shortly :)

Both AdGuard DNS and AdGuard Home are only gaining steam, expect them to reach new heights in the next year!

Safari

And then the fire nation attacked again. No kidding! They put a spoke in ad blockers' wheel once more, you have to hand it to them for the sheer stubbornness. This time the victims chosen were the Safari extensions users. Long story short, only apps from the AppStore are allowed starting with Safari 12 (which is already mandatory on Mojave OS). Any extensions downloaded from the web are not supported anymore, and even extensions from the official Extensions Gallery are deprecated.

Yeah, right, "slow down web browsing". That's why.

What's the big deal, you may ask? Well, de-facto "extensions" from AppStore are apps, and they are severely restricted in capabilities compared to old ones. But don't despond, we responded quickly by developing a new product: AdGuard for Safari. It is available in AppStore, and despite all difficulties we managed to make it almost just as capable as the old Safari extension used to be.

AdGuard for Safari

People tried it and received it well: AdGuard for Safari is currently holding a place in top10 in its category and top100 overall among all AppStore extensions. We, in our turn, don't rest on our laurels, but rather keep working hard and improve it. In 2019 we promise to make AdGuard for Safari as good, if not better, than its predecessor used to be.

AdGuard research lab

Ok, we don't have a research lab. That didn't stop us from discovering several real threats to users' privacy and online safety over the course of 2018! Maybe you even read about some of them in articles on other websites and industry-related blogs. Just some of the most prominent:

Stealing:

We analyzed top1000 Google Play apps (350+ mln total downloads) and found out that:

almost half of them have permissions to extract your phone number and track phone calls

1 in 5 apps collects information about your email address

more than 20% can read your contacts

just under 10% read your text messages

most of the apps send this data over plain HTTP, exposing it to any intermediate third-party

Cryptojacking:

Our anti-cryptojacking script allowed us to discover that half of the top cryptojacking domains actually belong to popular video hosting services. We were even able to identify 11 malicious Chrome extensions with total weekly user count just under 37,000.

Privacy:

Certainly, the most noticeable researches were on the topic of online privacy. Without going into details:

We analyzed the top 2500 Google Play apps to discover that 41% of them collect data and send it to Facebook.

Perhaps, the biggest find of ours was the "Big Star Labs" spyware campaign. We uncovered that several Android and iOS apps, Chrome and Firefox extensions with total number of users more than 11 million, were practically stealing users' data.

Fake ad blockers:

When choosing an ad blocker, be careful. The worst enemy is the one who disguises himself as a friend. We found out about several fake ad blocking extensions (20mln+ total installs) that were taking control of your browser and did harmful things. Thankfully, after our reports Google took all of them down, but who knows if there are more.

Plans for 2019

As always, plans are plenty. Just to name few:

New major updates for AdGuard for Windows, Mac and Android — all with new design, better performance and more options.

New AdGuard for iOS. Better than before! Also, we already mentioned we have thoughts about AdGuard Pro too.

As promised, AdGuard Home will finally reach v1.0. One of the main goals — make it more easily configurable and understandable for casual users.

CoreLibs, CoreLibs everywhere! Thanks to it, the development cycle for all our products will become shorter because we need to make changes to three separate products no more. Expect more frequent updates!

Some special features that we would like to keep secret for now. This way their announcement and release will be all the more exciting!

Acknowledgements

Throughout the year, we received help from several different sources. But most of all, we owe all of the above to you — our user. Not only AdGuard wouldn't make any sense without its users, but we were blessed with an awesome community that actively takes part in life of AdGuard. We want to thank you all: beta- and nightly-testers, contributors to our open-source projects, translators and localization moderators, reviewers and everyone in general who with their constant support inspired us to make AdGuard better. We appreciate your help and hope to see you by our side again in the next year.

And this pretty much wraps up 2018. No matter if you stayed with us for the entire year, or joined along the way, we hope you will spend many more years with AdGuard! Happy New Year!

]]>Follow AdGuard into the New Year!https://adguard.com/en/blog/new-year-2019.html
Fri, 28 Dec 2018 12:24:40 +03005cb72088938bc20ceabf2451PromoThis year AdGuard has prepared a 30% sale on all licenses and a New Year's giveaway. Get online protection and try to win one of the 5 iPads! Good luck!

Traditionally we celebrate Christmas and New Year's with our users, and we love every minute of it. This year AdGuard has prepared a festive giveaway and a holiday sale on any and every license we have in our arsenal.
And, before getting into the details, we would like to wish you a very happy new year: may your dreams come true in 2019! Thank you for your continuous support and for staying with us! <3

30% sale on everything

We decided not to discriminate: the sale applies to EVERYTHING. And anything.
Right this moment you can:

Buy any AdGuard license key (for your own usage or for your friends and family);

Extend your existing license key (=add another year to its curent validity period) or make it a lifetime key;

Holiday Giveaway

This year we've got 5 tablets for you to win:

Prizes: Apple iPad (2018)

Terms and how to participate

Any user with a purchased and active (by promotion's end) AdGuard license key can participate.

If you have several keys you can fill in the form several times (separate form for each key) to increase your chances of winning :) A key for several devices (e.g: Premium 3+3) is considered as 1 key = 1 entry.

Please, don't enter expired keys, keys that you haven't purchased (bonus or beta licenses), keys to other programs or random sets of characters; don't fill in the form several times with the same key — such entries won't be allowed to participate in the giveaway.

You can join the giveaway through January 9, 2019. On January 10, we will randomly select and announce the winners in our blog.

Good luck!

UPD Jan 10, 2019: Winners

Well, well, well, here comes the long-awaited moment - winner announcement. These 5 lucky users will start the 2019 year with a new iPad:

2492 Shawn Ch.

1729 Marcus Zi.

1028 Hiroaki Ko.

2826 Vrizas Ch.

338 Boris MA.

Congratulations! We will contact you soon for further details on the delivery of the prize. And we must say, this is so flattering that among the winners there are those who joined us quite recently, and users who have been with us for a looong time ;)

More about the giveaway
All users could participate with the purchased and active AdGuard key could participate. As usual, we chose the winners randomly, all fair and square!
To validate this, you can see the selection process in the video below (by finding yourself in the list).

Please note, that we have excluded those who entered incorrect/not purchased/expired AdGuard key. But if you didn't find yourself in the video and think that there was a mistake, please email us at pr@adguard.com.

Thank you all for participating! We really enjoy our glorious tradition, and this is definitely not our last giveaway. So don't be upset, join the draw next time, and maybe you will be one of the lucky winners <3

]]>AdGuard's instructions for Christmas spirithttps://adguard.com/en/blog/christmas-spirit.html
Sun, 23 Dec 2018 19:11:38 +03005cb72088938bc20ceabf2450PromoAdGuard knows how to recapture your Christmas spirit! -30% off for everything as a perfect gift for yourself and family and a giveaway with 5 iPads to try your luck!

Time before Christmas can be stressful and too hectic sometimes. Additional pressure is everywhere and the time for keeping up is tight, so it is easy to end up sad and almost depressed a few days before holidays. Whatever your reason is, here are some tips you can follow to recapture your Christmas spirit.

1. Turn on the joy with holiday tunes

Yes, it's the most obvious tip but nothing will get you into the Christmas spirit faster than music. Once you hear those familiar songs, you'll be flooded with warm and cozy feelings.

2. Watch some old school Christmas movies

The best way to do it is sitting comfortably in your pyjamas, with a cup of tea or hot chocolate in your hands. To have the maximum effect, you've got to watch the good stuff, the golden classics: "Home Alone", "Love Actually", "The Nightmare Before Christmas", etc.

3. Preparing gifts

Choosing something for your loved ones can be a jolly process and all the decorations in stores (even online ones) can cheer you up. When you see other people full of Christmas spirit around you, you are more likely to catch that special feeling as well. As for AdGuard, we made a special offer for Christmas – 30% off, so you can protect yourself and your loved ones from online threats for a good price. In the XXI century, who wouldn't want Internet without ads and tracking for Christmas?

4. Spent time with friends and family

It's the most effective way to feel happy and festive. What's more, you can combine the tips above: order a pizza or bake cookies and invite a few friends/family to watch a movie all together. In the end, that's what holidays are for.

5. Let the magic happen

No matter how grown-up you are, Christmas is the time for joy and surprises. That's why we organize a New Year giveaway. We have prepared 5 iPads and one of them can be yours!

Attention: you can participate only if you have a valid key!
If you're interested, you need to fill in the form here.

We at AdGuard put a lot of our effort into protecting people's privacy, and many AdGuard users value our products exactly for this reason. One of the biggest challenges has always been not just providing good protection, but doing it for everyone, no matter where the person is and what device do they use.

This is where AdGuard DNS comes into play: a privacy-oriented DNS service that blocks trackers and ads anywhere, from your PC and mobile devices to smart TV and IoT. Today, after honing it for more than two years (wow, time flies!), we proudly announce the official release of AdGuard DNS!

Now, what exactly is DNS?

DNS is the "address book" of the Internet. Whenever you open a website, send an email or share a cat picture with your friend, an app or browser that you are using needs to match the domain name (e.g. yahoo.com, that's easy for you to remember but makes no sense to computer) with an IP address that computers actually use. For that purpose, it sends a special DNS request to a DNS resolver. The resolver converts the domain name into an IP address and sends it back.

Schematically, this is how DNS works

In reality, the DNS system is more complicated, but this is enough to get a basic understanding. Normally, your ISP will decide which DNS resolver to use (or, generally, the network operator of whatever network you are using at the time).

The DNS privacy concern

Do you see any problem with the scheme described above? Yes, exactly, some random guy who provides you with Internet access knows every single domain that you visited and when. One quick example: a study shows that behavioral pattern obtained by analyzing only DNS data allowed to correctly identify 86% of the users.

It doesn't sound very good, especially considering how much effort a lot of people are putting into protecting their privacy: using HTTPS, VPNs, ad blockers etc. All this only to be tracked via DNS and monetized by ISPs? Don’t have any illusions, they will sell this information, had they gotten a reasonable opportunity.

DNS traffic is vulnerable to intruders

Thankfully, you can prevent it. Nearly all devices that allow you to access the Internet also give an option to select a custom DNS resolver. But which one to use? There is no shortage of choices here, but not all of them have your privacy as a top priority. We offer a service that not only will keep your online activity a secret, but also will take a few steps beyond.

Let's look inside AdGuard DNS and see why it is one of the most privacy-friendly choices you can make.

A bumpy road to safety

Choosing an alternative resolver is the first step, but it may not be enough. Granted, no one should be able to access your DNS traffic now, it doesn't mean no one could. DNS protocol is not exactly new, and back at the time when it was designed, privacy standards were virtually non-existent. As a result, today there is a high risk that your DNS requests will be eavesdropped on or even altered by malefactors. To oppose them, we took several measures.

DNSCrypt

DNSCrypt was the first attempt at making DNS traffic safe from intruders. It is a special protocol that encrypts communication between your device and a DNS server, thus protecting it from tampering and man-in-the-middle attacks. Those of you who are no strangers to AdGuard DNS know that we support this technology for quite some time.

With AdGuard DNS, your traffic is protected

The problem with DNSCrypt is that it never officially became a standard or received an RFC (a document listing technical specifications) unlike its alternatives: DNS-over-HTTPS and DNS-over-TLS. This leads us to believe that it will become less popular over time and will not receive much support on the OS level. Luckily, there are other modern tools available, which may be not as widespread yet, but they reach much higher security and will be the new DNS privacy standard for the foreseeable future.

DNS-over-TLS

Also referred to as DoT, this protocol encrypts DNS queries and wraps them via TLS protocol. Don't worry if you didn't understand a word — what's important is that DoT is more reliable than DNSCrypt. More and more DNS providers support it, and AdGuard proudly joins their ranks.

Worth noting that starting with Android 9, Android devices have built-in support for DNS-over-TLS. You can configure your smartphone or tablet to use this protocol in a few taps without having to install any additional software.

DNS-over-HTTPS

Akin to DoT, DNS-over-HTTPS protocol is often contracted to DoH. It performs a remote DNS resolution via the HTTPS protocol — again, the gist is that it is another safe way to secure your DNS traffic from eavesdropping and hijacking. Is there any difference between DoT and DoH? For a casual user — not really. And if there is a difference for you, you probably know the answer anyway :)

AdGuard DNS recently added DoH support, which brings our service to the forefront of privacy protection. Sadly, this protocol is still relatively new and there are simply not so many ways to employ it on your device. Luckily (what a coincidence!), the next version of AdGuard for Android will have this option (you can already try it out with the Nightly build!).

It's not all about DNS

Now that you have your DNS privacy covered, it is time to think about other potential threats. It is not a secret to anybody that the web is swarmed with thousands of trackers that watch your every click and then use this information to target you with ads and build your personal profile. How to fight that? AdGuard DNS is not just a regular DNS resolver, it also filters traffic. Whenever your device sends a "bad" request, be it an ad or a tracker, instead of the correct IP-address AdGuard DNS server will return nothing. Simple, yet effective.

AdGuard DNS blocks requests to ad and tracking domains

And finally, don't forget that AdGuard actually provides two DNS services — the "Default" and the "Family protection" one. The only difference between them is that the latter, in addition to other features, also blocks access to any content inappropriate for kids and enforces the "Safe search" option in browsers that have it.

Summing up

So, how do you set it all up? This link leads to the detailed guide, but here is the required information if you already know what to do:

Our DNS servers:

176.103.130.130 or 176.103.130.131 for "Default";

176.103.130.132 or 176.103.130.134 for "Family protection".

DNS-over-TLS:

Use dns.adguard.com string for "Default" or dns-family.adguard.com for "Family protection".

DNS-over-HTTPS:

Use https://dns.adguard.com/dns-query for "Default" and https://dns-family.adguard.com/dns-query for "Family protection" mode.

We'd like to emphasize that AdGuard DNS is open source, as all our free products are. We find it extremely important that services and products which you trust with your privacy are as transparent and trustworthy as possible. To view the source code, learn everything about AdGuard DNS or even leave a suggestion, visit our GitHub repository.

We hope that you will enjoy AdGuard DNS. The project will only grow bigger from now on. We already added multiple server locations across the world, and will add more in the future — of course, along with more features! See you soon in the next year!

About a month ago we announced the most recent addition to the AdGuard family: AdGuard for Safari. It has already found its users, and we were happy to see a lot of feedback during the very first days after the release. Today, after taking that feedback into account, we roll out the first update. So what exactly is inside?

20 Dec 2018 update:

We rolled out an update that wasn't big enough to justify a separate Blog post, so lets mention it here.

In the previous update we made the Safari icon optional; it was only logical to make the Menu Bar one optional too. You can even disable them both if you want to go full minimalistic :) You'll find this option in AdGuard preferences in case you want to hide it.

Aside from it, some quality of life changes were introduced, some minor bugs were fixed. The full changelog is available on GitHub.

What's new?

As it is historically with AdGuard extensions, the extension icon itself serves as a menu, providing such options as manual blocking of any element, reporting websites and adding domains to the whitelist. While we believe that having access to all these features right from the web page is very handy, apparently, many users don't like seeing the extension icon in browser. From now on, you can simply disable the icon via the Safari preferences (it can be brought back the same way, of course).

There are other changes, of course. For example, several new localizations have been added. The full list is available on GitHub.

Remind you that AdGuard Safari extension can be downloaded for free directly from App Store, and good luck fighting those ads!

AdGuard is constantly evolving. We always try to stay in the thick of things, hear out what the users have to say and keep on making our products better. As such, we've been meaning to write up an updated in-depth review of all the functions AdGuard products can boast for some time now. We already did it for AdGuard for Windows, and now we'll 'disassemble' our second flagship product, which is AdGuard for Android.

As you might well know, AdGuard for Android has an extensive list of features both in adblocking and in the privacy protection area. And now we will go over each of them to help you navigate through our software and put it to a 100% use.

Ad Blocking

First and foremost, any ad blocker's purpose is, well, to block ads. Not surprisingly, the algorithm of ad blocking is mostly the same for the majority of software that is around. The process of filtering ads is described here.

AdGuard removes ads from pages

But most of popular ad blockers are browser extensions, and they obviously doesn't suit very well for Android. And those apps that are present on the Android market, sadly, are not stellar in their abilities. For example, here's a link to a comparative article on mobile ad blockers. Give it a read if you'd like to learn the differences between approaches of AdGuard and other ad blockers (and see why our app is superior :D).

The ad blocking feature is pretty obvious in its concept, but there are some points worthy of a separate mention. Most importantly, unlike many other ad blockers on the market, AdGuard works as a universal filter sifting through your apps traffic and deciding what to do with this or that web request. The whole process is managed by filters — lists of special rules. The program has a default set of filters (constantly updated), and you can even add your own filtering rules to the mix.

Filters

The program uses a lot of different filters, both public third-party and our own, sorted by language and their purpose. For example, the "Annoyances filter" is very different from the "Filter for useful ads".

So many filters — choose any!

You can find out more about all the filters available for AdGuard products by reading their description inside the app or by following this link to our Knowledge Base.

HTTPS filtering

Nowadays almost everything works via HTTPS — a secured web protocol. Unfortunately, advertising moguls also use it, this is why HTTPS filtering is crucial for a modern ad blocker.

HTTPS protocol encrypts your data

However, there are additional hoops we need to jump through to be able to block HTTPS ads. Due to the nature of HTTPS, AdGuard needs an explicit permission from you to do so; our strong advice is to take a minute, go to "HTTPS filtering" tab in the app's menu and enable this feature. It's an easy two-step thing to do, and if you did everything right, you'll see this on your screen:

Successfully enabled HTTPS filtering

Privacy Protection

Don't you know that even if you don't use specific apps like Facebook, it doesn't stop advertising and media giants from collecting information about you? We did our own research which you can find here.

Big results of our little research on tracking

Many websites also gather information about their visitors, such as their IP addresses, information about browser and operating system, screen resolution, and even what page the user navigated from. The more important it is to have a tool that will protect you from being tracked on the Internet. AdGuard for Android includes several potent filters created specifically for this purpose: AdGuard Spyware filter, developed by our filter specialists, EasyPrivacy — a popular public list, and others.

The Spyware filter protects your personal data from automatic data gathering systems. We strongly recommend having this or similar filter on if you care about your online privacy. There are other functions in AdGuard for Android that indirectly help you keep your online privacy. DNSCrypt is one of those, and we will get to it soon enough.

AdGuard for Windows users might have a question about Stealth Mode that has already become a vital part of the Windows app. We are happy to say that the next version of AdGuard for Android will have it too, taking the privacy protection to the whole new level. A dedicated anti-tracking module is so much more substantial than a filter (albeit a very, very good one).

A sneak peek on the future Stealth Mode module

Why do we keep emphasising the importance of not being tracked? Because tracking is indeed the new cyber plague, and we certainly don't appreciate our data being used like this or in any other shady way. Of course, we can't resist including an example with Facebook. Be safe, avoid tracking!

Phishing & Malware

The Internet is a pretty dangerous place where your device can be attacked by viruses, whereas your personal or financial information can be stolen. Such terms as malware or phishing have become commonplace.

What is phishing? In short, it is a fraudulent online practice aimed at obtaining sensitive information like usernames, passwords, credit card details and such from internet users. This form of fraud, effected through spoof emailing and fake websites posing as trusted mediums like banks, social services etc, is causing more financial damage every year. As for malware, a.k.a. malicious software, it is as the name suggests — any type of software designed with the intent to damage the personal computer or other device it gets into. What once began as a prank now is a tool to steal confidential information from users and businesses.

Browsing Security module — simple but effective

Fortunately, AdGuard's Browsing Security module protects you from visiting phishing and malicious websites. It also warns you about malware being downloaded onto your device. But it is important to understand that AdGuard for Android is not an antivirus! It will not stop the actual download of a virus or delete the already existing ones. For the complete protection of your device, we recommend using AdGuard in tandem with a dedicated AV tool.

Browsing Security warns about a dangerous website

At the same time, we'd like to emphasize that your personal data is not transferred anywhere, and AdGuard does not know which websites you are visiting. The security check is not performed against an open web address (URL) but through hash prefixes (hash is a certain data structure that renders unambiguous each address added to the base). However, you have the option of sending us info on the websites you visit to improve the database, if you choose to. We won't mind if you don't mind :) You can learn more about AdGuard's phishing and malware protection here.

Control your apps

One of the main stated purposes of AdGuard for Android is to give users back the full control over their devices. With AdGuard, you can see comprehensive information about all web requests coming through your device. No app will be able to go online without you knowing.

Apps management

In the Apps Management module you can choose which apps should have WiFi or mobile data access, which will be filtered by AdGuard and which not. You can also change the background Internet access rules for your apps when the screen is locked. These settings can be applied to all installed apps at once or on the individual basis.

Individual statistics and configuration for each app

You will find all of the extra settings in the upper right corner of the App Management screen. They can help you fine-tune AdGuard for Android according to your wish and preference. For example, you can make the common settings applicable to each and every app, or select the apps which need a more detailed approach.

Every single app is monitored by AdGuard

All the icons you will see on the screen are clickable, and by tapping on them you will open a screen showing app-specific traffic to help you make more informed decisions. As you see, AdGuard can be a serious help not only in the ad filtering, privacy protection and online security departments, it can help your device function better, saving battery life and traffic as well.

Filtering Log

This feature first appeared in AdGuard for Android 2.9 and made life much easier for many users. Thanks to it, you have full control over all the processes on your device. In the Filtering Log, you can directly observe all web requests made by browsers and apps.

Complete information about device's traffic

For each request, you have an option to block it right there in one tap (or unblock it, if the request is already blocked). There's also detailed information about each request, although it is mostly aimed at the advanced users, particularly those who create their own filtering rules. We will be elaborating on it just a bit further below.

User Filter

As we have already mentioned, AdGuard for Android uses a set of filters to block ads. And then there is also User Filter that allows you to create and adjust your own filtering rules. It is located in the "Settings" tab of AdGuard menu.

This looks too boring... Let's add some custom rules!

When you first install AdGuard, User filter is empty, of course. To fill it with rules, you will need to understand the basics of the rules syntax. Don't worry if you are not familiar with it, here's a good place to start should you feel an urge to delve deeper into custom rules creation.

A small "lifehack" — use the "Import" feature to upload your favorite filter to the User filter. But be careful, it will overwrite any rules that are currently added there.

Blocking requests via Filtering log creates entries in User filter

By the way, whenever you use Filtering Log to block anything, a corresponding rule will appear in the User filter, so use it if you ever want to undo the blocking. And generally speaking, Filtering Log and User filter go together particularly well: you can use the former to monitor requests in order to build a correct rule for the User filter.

DNS filtering

DNS filtering is one of the most effective ways to protect your device from ads and phishing.

A bit of a theory refresher: DNS stands for 'Domain name system', and its purpose is to translate domain names into something browsers can understand, i.e. IP addresses. So, each time you go to a website, your browser sends a DNS request to a special server, usually determined by your ISP. That server either redirects the request to another (upstream) server or replies with an IP address. If you use a special DNS server instead of the default one, you can use it to send bad requests to the "void" instead of the correct IP address.

DNS filtering has its own separate tab within the AdGuard for Android app home screen. Here you can choose which type of DNS you wish to use (it can be either regular DNS or high security DNS, a.k.a. DNSCrypt - we will get to that later on) as well as enable DNS-level blocking.

DNS blocking

What needs to be taken into account is that DNS blocking is more of an additional feature, which has several nuances. Most of them are mentioned above in the Knowledge Base article.

How DNS blocking works

How exactly does AdGuard block DNS requests? It has a special 'Simplified domain names filter' which contains a large list of ad and tracker domains, which it uses in conjunction with User filter to recognize 'bad' requests. Every request is checked against this filter, and if there's a hit, instead of forwarding it to the DNS server, it is being rerouted to a 'blackhole'.

The simplicity of this approach is both a benefit and a disavantage. The main advantage of this approach is that it's both battery life friendly and traffic-saving. Once a domain is blocked, it won't be requested again within an hour. The disadvantage would be the "roughness" of this method: specific URLs can't be blocked, only whole domains. It can sometimes lead to breaking of some websites.

An example of differences between AdGuard and other ad blockers

Most ad blockers for Android use this principle, but what is pretty much the whole app in their case is only one of the (many) features for AdGuard. And that's what makes us stand out from the crowd ;)

Custom DNS servers

But AdGuard for Android "DNS package" does not end just there. One of the useful perks is an option to select absolutely any DNS server to use. At your service is a list consisting of dozens of servers to choose from, from our own AdGuard DNS servers to popular choices like Google DNS, Cloudflare and many others. On top of that, if you favorite server is not in the default list, don't fret: you still can enter its address manually and use it anyway!

But why would you want to use a custom DNS server instead of one offered by your ISP by default, you may ask? There are different reasons, really depends on each person's personal preference. Some servers are faster, some provide ad blocking or parental control solutions, some enhance your privacy etc.

DNSCrypt

If you use regular plain DNS protocol, you are at risk of your DNS requests being intercepted, eavesdropped on and/or altered. Experiments show that the DNS tracking can even be used to construct a 'profile of interests' for any user. AdGuard supports DNSCrypt — a special protocol that encrypts communication with the DNS server, thus preventing tampering and tracking by any third parties, including your ISP.

DNSCrypt explained

If you care about your online privacy, we strongly recommend using DNSCrypt. Conveniently, there's a whole list of DNSCrypt servers available in AdGuard for Android!

Proxy and TOR

A proxy server is basically another computer serving as a hub that processes your internet requests. You can set up AdGuard to route all your device's traffic through any proxy — and you'll be able to configure the whole thing right inside the app. If you need an instruction on how to set up a proxy, look it up in the Knowledge base.

Some popular VPN providers offer an alternative way to use their service as a proxy. This can be used to run them alongside AdGuard in local VPN mode.

AdGuard for Android proxy settings

Contrary to a popular opinion, using a proxy server is not just about bypassing access restriction to geolocked resources. It is about security! If you are using a proxy server, intruders won't know what websites you visit. You can also use AdGuard along with the anonymity network TOR (we have already integrated AdGuard with Tor for your convenience!). Here is a Wiki article where the whole concept of TOR network is nicely explained in case you wish to find out more.

You'll need to install Orbot to run AdGuard with TOR

Be aware that you will need to download and install the Orbot app — it will help the integration with TOR go smoothly.

Other features

Is there anything left that we haven't covered yet? Indeed, there are a few things we'd like to mention. They might not be key features of the app, but nevertheless they deserve your attention:

You can export or import AdGuard settings (for a faster switch between the settings profiles or to transfer your profile between different devices)

Select an update channel, i.e. the mode in which the application receives its updates (stable release channel, less stable beta channel and raw "nightly" channel)

By tapping on a little battery icon on the main screen of the app you will get to the "Battery Usage" screen. System battery stats are often wrong, so we decided to have our own, one that would reflect the real state of things

You can change the app's language in the General Settings tab. By the way, AdGuard is continuously translated to more and more languages — and largely thanks to volunteer contributions by AdGuard users!

And that's all about AdGuard for Android! Well, not quite — there are a lot more nuances to it, but we covered all the basics (and even more). Let us know in the comments if you have any questions that this article fails to answer, we'll hang around to help you. Till the next time — after all, we have so many plans for the future versions!

Today is the day of the biggest sales during the year. And we are not the ones to be left out of it. That’s why AdGuard is kicking off a special 50% discount (for all products) that will last not just on Friday but for 5 days, so that our dear users can take time to make their choice and get the most out of it and the least ads out of everything else.

We reduced prices by half, and the discount applies to everything, should you decide to:

buy a new license,

extend the existing one (and you don’t need to wait until the key expires, you can extend it now, the previous paid period will be saved),

upgrade the license key (for example, make it Lifetime or increase the number of devices).

This promotion will last until November 27. Want a discount? Just click here.

Black Friday with AdGuard will make your internet ad- and tracker-free on all days of the week.

It seems that Apple is not really on a path to make adblockers’ life easy. As you might have heard, Safari 12 came out and disabled all Safari adblocking extensions that were downloaded directly from the Web without using Mac App Store.

Since Mojave will make Safari 12 version mandatory, we decided to make our extension App Store-compatible ASAP, but we lost much time on review.

Features overview

Let's glance over what the new extension offers you in terms of functionality. Mostly, all the usual suspects:

Ad blocking

This is the most obvious and yet most important feature. That's why we always make sure that all our products provide ad blocking of the best quality. Once you install the AdGuard extension, all ads will be automatically blocked.

Whitelisting

Often, you might want some websites not to be filtered by AdGuard, for example sites you would like to support financially. You can always just add website's domain to the whitelist.

A curious option is "Invert whitelist". It turns the filtering upside down, now no websites are filtered except for those from the list.

Filters

Depending on the user, the amounts and types of elements they want to be blocked may differ. That's why you can customize in detail what will be filtered and what won't, and you can do so by toggling various purpose-specific "blocks", i.e. combinations of filters.

E.g. if you are annoyed by social widgets (intrusive Like/Share buttons etc.) you can switch on the "Social widgets" filter cluster. Moreover, you can go inside the cluster to cherry-pick the exact filters of which the cluster consists.

Even more, you can add your own custom filters by URL or from a local file!

User filter

If you are an advanced user and know ad blocker syntax you can create individual filtering rules. And if you are not familiar with this process yet but would like to learn — don't worry, we have a comprehensive guide in our Knowledge Base.

Manual blocking tool

A very handy instrument to get rid of anything on the page that you don't want to be there — not necessarily a missed ad (although that happens sometimes, too). Just select the element that you want to hide, and AdGuard will automatically make a corresponding rule to deal with it.

Reporting websites

We are constatly looking to improve our ad blocking capabilities. Essentially, we value the feedback from our users and even largely rely on it to know about the missed ads. If any ads or annoyances happen to slip through, please let us know through the "Report" button in the extensions menu. We appreciate your help!

How to install AdGuard Safari extension

We have to give credit where credit is due — the installation process is rather simple with App Store.

In the opened Safari Preferences check the boxes "AdGuard Safari Icon" and "AdGuard"

Show those pesky ads who is in charge here!

Comparison with other ad blockers

As a matter of fact, there are very few other ad blocking extensions present in the App Store (by the time this article is written). Their functionality range isn’t exactly impressive.

We studied all the major alternatives to AdGuard Safari extension and tried to stay unbiased. This is the visual representation of capabilities of four most popular free ad blocking browser extensions currently present in the Store:

A comparison chart for Safari ad blockers

You can try any of them out right now and see why we are so confident that you won’t find a better free Safari extension than AdGuard.

Why open source?

We have a clear stance on that. We believe that if an app/extension is free (and is in charge of user’s privacy) it shall be open-source.

AG for Safari is no exception to this rule, and is also available on GitHub. By the way, if you want to help us improve AdGuard, we welcome your contribution.

Better yet, there is a full-fledged AdGuard for Mac

With all above said, there is a solution that is even more effective than AG Safari extension. I mean, of course, AdGuard for Mac. It can:

filter your traffic in all browsers and apps on your Mac

have an unlimited number of filter rules

provide a better filtering quality (due to the lack of browser API restrictions)